Operating Leverage and Fixed-Cost Strategy Senior Director

The mandate

The Senior Director will clarify how fixed commitments, step capacity and variable economics shape performance across growth and contraction. Current planning classifications can describe costs for reporting purposes without revealing when they become avoidable, when capacity must be added and which decisions amplify downside. The role will make operating leverage a governed strategic choice.

This permanent portfolio spans cost-behavior policy, capacity thresholds, downside scenarios and commitment review. It must connect time horizon to controllability, distinguish contractual fixedness from managerial choice and prevent short-term unit-cost improvement from obscuring longer-term capacity or resilience consequences.

The Senior Director may approve planning classifications, require commitment scenarios and challenge cases that assume immediate cost flexibility. Decisions to enter, renew, resize or exit commitments remain with authorised leaders. FP&A owns whether those choices are represented honestly in forecast ranges and risk appetite discussions.

The first year will deliver a commitment atlas, operating-leverage model, two downside rehearsals and a review of upcoming decision windows. Success will be demonstrated by earlier choices around step costs, clearer downside actions and fewer plans that rely on cost release unsupported by timing or obligation evidence.

What you will own

• Define cost behavior across multiple horizons, separating accounting classification from contractual, operational and managerial controllability.
• Map material fixed and step commitments by renewal date, exit path, capacity threshold, dependency and cash consequence.
• Build operating-leverage curves that show margin, cash and capacity sensitivity across demand and productivity ranges.
• Identify cliff points where incremental demand, regulation or service requirements trigger disproportionate resource commitments.
• Establish commitment reviews early enough to preserve renegotiation, exit or deferral options before automatic continuation.
• Create downside action ladders that quantify time-to-effect, one-time cost, service consequence and reversibility.
• Challenge efficiency plans that improve allocated unit rates while leaving absolute or cash cost unchanged.
• Develop finance partners capable of applying cost behavior to strategy, forecast and investment cases consistently.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 16 years in FP&A, cost strategy, capacity finance or performance management, including senior team leadership.
• Evidence of a fixed-cost or step-capacity model that changed the timing or structure of an executive commitment.
• Deep command of cost behavior, operating leverage, commitment curves, break-even, controllability and cash timing.
• A case where a cost labelled variable proved fixed within the decision horizon, including the correction made.
• Experience facilitating downside choices without presenting indiscriminate cuts as a substitute for operating analysis.
• Proof of reconciling strategic cost views to financial planning and controlled reporting classifications.
• Ability to create durable capability across finance and operating stakeholders rather than retaining specialist knowledge centrally.

Working terms and boundaries

• This permanent role has first-year checkpoints after the commitment atlas, leverage model, each rehearsal and first renewal-window review.
• Classification standards and financial challenge are in scope; contract decisions, service choices and operating execution remain with accountable owners.
• Hybrid work includes on-site commitment councils and downside exercises, with other attendance arranged around decision windows.
• No cost may be shown as released until its obligation, cash and service consequences are evidenced for the relevant horizon.
• Year-one success requires governed behavior definitions, live commitment alerts, tested downside ladders and trained internal owners.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 5 October 2026. Mandate reference FPA-PER-2026-MUC-33.